


Pieces of a Childhood

by flipflop_diva



Category: Defiance (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 04:09:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1496095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes a father's love is all you need.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pieces of a Childhood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karrenia_rune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/gifts).



She was all he had now.

A little girl, no more than maybe four, with a face that clearly said she didn’t belong to him or any of his kind. She was dressed in pajamas that were dirty and ripped, a blanket clenched in her hands. 

He found her hidden in a dark dusty corner of an abandoned building, fear all over her face but curiosity in her eyes. The guilt when he saw her — the face of the man he had just killed in self-defense fresh in his mind — sitting heavily in his chest.

There was no other option. Not even for a second. He knew what would happen to her if he left her there for the others to find. He knew what would happen if he left her there alone.

He knelt down to her level and met her eyes.

“I’m Nolan,” he said. “You’re safe now.”

And he scooped her up into his arms and carried her into the night before anyone had a chance to know that she, or he, was missing. 

He ran for miles, no destination in mind, just knowing he had to keep going. He didn’t think about what he had just done or about what was going to happen next. If Nolan had believed in fate, he almost would have said it was meant to be, because as he ran, this little girl — this strange child he had found in the middle of the night —tightened her small, thin arms around his neck and for the first time since he was a boy, he didn’t feel alone.

•••

She was all he had now. And he wasn’t going to let them take her away.

He made the plans weeks ahead of time, enlisting Eddie’s help, making him swear on his life he wouldn’t breathe a word of them to anyone else. 

He had gotten the official notice four weeks before. They had given him sixty days to turn the girl in. He hadn’t said a word about it to Irisa.

By now, she was six years old and a handful. Sometimes so much he wondered what he had gotten himself into. She was well behaved until she wasn’t, and she didn’t like to listen. She hid from people she didn’t know, and she wouldn’t — or couldn’t — tell him about her life before he met her.

But she also sang songs to herself when she didn’t know anyone was listening and she climbed in his lap and put her head on his shoulder and made him tell her stories of the days before the aliens came.

She never asked about what happened to her parents, and he never offered to tell her. But he promised her every day he would keep her safe.

So he made escape plans and went over them nightly because he had to make sure there weren’t any flaws. And then when the time finally came, he put his plan in motion and once again scooped up his little girl and made a run for it.

“You’re safe with me,” he told her when they were finally far enough away that he felt he could breathe again. He thought she would be scared, but instead she just smiled and rested her head against his shoulder.

“I know,” was all she said.

•••

She was all he had now, and he loved her, but that didn’t mean he always had to like her, and three years after he hid her away from those who had ordered her appearance in a refugee camp, they had their first real fight.

She was being ornery and he hadn’t slept in days and she was going to get them captured if she kept disobeying and he finally had enough.

He didn’t touch her, just yelled — loudly — but by the fear in her eyes, you would have thought he had. She ran off into the woods, and for once he didn’t run after her and instead spent an hour letting off steam.

She returned home a few hours later, just like he knew she would, but neither one of them were in a good enough place to talk. She was glaring at him like he was her worst enemy and he was still frustrated enough not to care.

She was nine years old, and most days he forgot she was technically still a child. She knew more than some adults and she had seen more than many of them, but that night, she had nightmares that only a child had and her cries pierced his soul.

He sat by her side and stroked her hair and whispered he was sorry and that just because he yelled didn’t mean he didn’t care.

She looked at him in the middle of that cold, dark night and placed her hand in his.

“Don’t leave me,” she said.

“They’d have to drag me away in chains,” he said.

•••

She was all he had, and for the first time he wondered if he would ever get her back.

She was thirteen years old, and it was the longest she had ever run away from home. The sun had set since their last fight and then it had risen, only to set and rise again.

He had been mad, and she had been madder, and he had said things he never meant to say and she had told him she didn’t need him anyway. He’d thought she didn’t mean it because she was a teenager and he had been one once and that’s what they did, but now he wondered if maybe she wasn’t as much like him as he thought she was and he tried to think of his life without her.

But it had been nine years and he couldn’t remember how he had filled the days or what he had thought about and he didn’t know how he had do it now.

So he stayed at their house, or what had been passing as one, and waited for as long as he dared.

And ten minutes before he was about to give up, a figure appeared in his line of sight and he could have sworn there were tear tracks on her cheeks.

She didn’t say a word and neither did he, but he opened his arms and she walked into them.

“I’ll never leave you,” she whispered into his chest.

“You’re all I’ve ever had.”


End file.
